Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year
theverge.comPurely marketing for the “more is better” pseudo audiophile.
ABX testing blew the “lossless sounds better” mantra out of the window nearly 2 decade ago [1]
Doesn't matter how high quality spotify is if new music is mastered so poorly.
Also doesn't matter for me since my car, a tech filled tesla, streams spotify at what sounds like the lowest possible bitrate.
Yes. This is a major problem. Shit in shit out. I'd love to revist a lot of songs if someone would be able and willing to master them skillfully. Low dynamic range is the main culprit here.
Too low bite rate can show in some few cases. High hats seem to be difficult and some organ music, transients in general iirc. And you need good enough equipment (I don't mean expensive). This kind of analytical listening to detect small problems is exhausting. Relaxed listening does not need lossless codecs.
But mastering is the key. I would pay premium for good mastering instead of lossless.
>Cunningham and McGregor [1]
>A total of 100 participants engaged with the listening test and were recruited from the Merchiston campus at Edinburgh Napier University. With respect to background, 28% were students at the University, whilst 33% were academic or faculty staff and 39% were administrative and support staff. Participants were not offered any form of remuneration or any other form of inducement for their involvement.
This [1] Was the only test that had included Uncompressed WAV or PCM as anchor. And it was tested with sort of randomly selected participants, and randomly selected sample sound track.
>Purely marketing for the “more is better” pseudo audiophile.
All the other test listed were done during what I called the Audio Codec era on HydrogenAudio. Where professional encoder developers and enthusiast ABX the hell out of psychoacoustics tuning. Along with problematic samples testing.
For 90%+ of general public, MP3 128kbps with a decent encoder ( LAME ) has been good enough for well over a decade. Suggesting better codec doesn't matter and is purely for pseudo audiophile completely neglect the work people have been tuning and making these audio codec better for the past ~20 years.
And yes, 10 years later Musepack v8 still beats AAC or Opus in High Bitrate.
> Suggesting better codec doesn't matter and is purely for pseudo audiophile completely neglect the work people have been tuning and making these audio codec better for the past ~20 years.
I never suggested that better codecs don’t matter. I was stating that lossy codecs are amazing and that lossless, no matter which codec is used, isn’t necessary.
It is more interesting in that it shows that Spotify isn't worried about people ripping audio that is in theory more valuable for archival.
(I can't argue based on perceptual differences, but it just seems "wrong" to have the compressed version be the library master.)
You make a claim, but provide a link to a page that does not support your claim. Specifically, the "public results" section shows the winner of comparisons between compressed codecs, and not whether those codecs achieved transparency.
Correction: there is one footnote on that page, and it links to a single study performed by a team creating a compression algorithm that found that compression algorithms sound just as good.
My only question was why did they wait so long? They could have rolled out 321kbps super-duper mode for $14.99 years ago. People would have paid for it.
I can guarantee it’s not. A simple comparison between Spotify and Apple Music shows you with no doubt that Apple is doing something better with regards to compression, it sounds a lot more defined, so there is clearly room for improvement for Spotify.
> … shows you with no doubt that Apple is doing something better with regards to compression…
No it doesn’t. It shows their mastering/tuning techniques are different or they have access to different sources. Compression, wrt codecs, has nothing to do with the difference in sound you’re hearing.
Send me to hell if Spotify is mastering or applying EQ to any tracks. That would be egregious.
It’s definitely about compression. Implementations can differ significantly for the same formats, as anyone who remembers the initial MP3 frenzy can tell. The fact you cannot discern two random codecs at their max quality doesn’t mean Apple and Spotify cannot have a meaningful difference with their streaming codecs (both custom afaik).
> Send me to hell if Spotify is mastering…
Pack your bags. Just Google it, or you can start here [1]. A relevant quote “This is because Spotify applies Loudness Normalization to your tracks as they're played to listeners”
A brief search shows that both Apple and Spotify offer 256kbps AAC. ABX testing these two would be pointless. They’re both above transparent. It’s NOT the codec.
Send me to heaven if X would allow for parametric EQ settings based on headphone/sound system. This would appeal to *actual audiophiles [2]. This would confuse the hell out of normals, so bullet point marketing is what we get.
[1] https://artists.spotify.com/faq/mastering-and-loudness [2] https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq
It sounds to me as though you're saying that Spotify's loudness normalization is affecting the audio quality of the records. I don't believe this works the way that you may think it is working.
While Spotify IS applying file compression (ala mp3) to every one of their records (and this affects the sound quality) I have not heard any reports of them applying any additional post-EQ or volume compression in the way that, say, a radio station might. I believe you may be mistaken as to what the Loudness Normalization feature is doing.
It is simply turning down the volume of tracks that have been mixed/mastered to excessive loudness levels so that they match the average loudness of more sensibly-mixed/mastered songs. Turning the volume of the louder track down has no effect whatsoever on it's audio quality. The meta-effect, then, is that the normalization disincentivizes the practice of mixing/mastering songs too hot; something which DOES have a negative effect on the audio quality of a song.
Loudness normalization happens on the client, and can be opted-out.
What is it then? At any rate, if this new offering can match Apple Music quality then it’s a win - and not “pure marketing”.
There is a cut and dry relationship between bitrate and audio fidelity. You simply cannot encode higher frequency audio in lower bitrate samples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampli...
That's irrelevant because human ears aren't spectrum analyzers. Audio compression codecs exploit weakness in human perception[1] to discard data with minimal loss of subjective audio quality.
Too bad we have that pesky brain in the way. Human perception isn't just a matter of signal processing theory.
Nyquist is about sample rate and frequency, not bitrate and frequency.
Edit: Clearly there is generally a relationship between bitrate and quality, but for compressed audio it is far from "cut and dry".
Bitrate is just samplerate * bit depth. For 44100 and 32 bit float you have 1411200 bit per second.
That's only true for uncompressed audio.
Yes, but for most codecs, bitrate is variable. For the parts where the higher frequencies are present the codec is free to bump up the bitrate and it can also scale it down for silent parts or parts with low frequencies only.
Sure, if it were encoded at a variable rate. But then it wouldn’t be 320kbps CBR. Normally when I see people refer to 320kbps audio they literally mean constant bitrate. If it’s variable then for LAME mp3 people would specify V0 or V2. At least that’s the taxonomy that I absorbed when I was active on what.cd
Edit: you have edited your comment to remove mention of 320kbps so my comment is now moot :)
Yes, but afaik Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis, which is inherently VBR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis
Sorry. I removed the part about 320 kbps being an average, since I realized it was wrong, but you were faster :D.
Does this support 5.1 tracks. While rare, that would be game changing for folks with hifi setups.
Good news though. Losses saves you from conversion artifacts. Compression that's not further mangled sounds fine, but what's weird is if you run something with one crompression model through other compressors (ie, to get it onto a network then airplay then etc. )
The bitrates relative to the endless youtube / netflix / twitch streaming are still very small - 4K video streaming just crushed bandwidth, I'd love to know the youtube / netflix / prime video / twitch bandwidth loads, they have to be insane.
> what's weird is if you run something with one crompression model through other compressors (ie, to get it onto a network then airplay then etc. )
Happily, AirPlay compression is lossless (assuming 24-bit or less and 48 kHz or less).
AFAIK spotify premium uses 320kb/s vorbis for audio compression. I understand why you'd want lossless for archival purposes, but does it make a difference for playback? ie. can you tell the difference between 320kb/s vorbis and lossless in a ABX test?
I used to keep a local library of FLAC/ALAC lossless but in recent years have switched over to 256kbps AAC Apple Music for the stuff they have.
My audio setup isn't the best in the world, just a JDS Labs Element II and Sennheiser HD6XX, but for the stuff I listen to I have a hard time distinguishing between lossless and 256k AAC. I've ABX tested various bitrates of MP3s and can pick those out, but AAC eliminates the telltale artifacts that MP3s bring.
Might help that Apple streams "mastered for iTunes" copies for a number of albums which mandates less compression prior to encoding but I think it mostly boils down to AAC being better suited for music than MP3.
Usually it's not just the bitrate, but also the compression in mastering process that's different (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression for context). The "HiFi" versions are less compressed and on my highend audio system the difference between Tidal HiFi masters and Spotify is pretty stark and obviously noticable.
(The difference obviously has nothing to do with compression format.)
I hope Spotify will match the quality because Spotify Connect is way more reliable than the Cast broken mess.
Where is the evidence that Tidal is actually using masters that exclude DRC for their HiFi mixes?
I can't find anything that suggests this is actually true.
The only thing I can find indicates that their HiFi versions are based on MQA-supplied 24-bit masters, but that doesn't tell you whether or not DRC was applied to the source mix that MQA used.
And given that an uncompressed mix would require remastering by the artist/studio (DRC is not just a byproduct of conversion to a 16-bit format), you'll forgive me if I'm incredibly skeptical of this claim.
Exactly, it's literally a different sound file - not just format/delivery/etc.
Does it make a difference? It certainly sounds different (on my very midrange Audioengine speakers).
I certainly can't consistently identify which one is lossless in a blind test, but there is an audible difference between the same song in Vorbis and FLAC.
I don't know how useful this distinction is though.
The differences are due to psychoacoustics -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics . Our perception changes depending on situation, time, you knowing what is played, etc. To say that you hear a difference you should succeed in a blinded test and without any delay between listening. And succeed not only once.
So I ran a half-baked experiment here. Had a friend queue up a song (15 in total) in "HD" and not, play 30 seconds of one, pause for a few seconds, then play the same 30 seconds again, randomly choosing between the same quality (placebo-is) and the other.
Then I guessed "same or different" quality. Got about 85% right overall.
I'm sure it wasn't perfectly blind, but seems to indicate to me that it does in fact sound different. Now, I cannot say for sure it's not sound cards or other things in the output path causing differences as well.
Now if you asked me to pick which was HD and which was 320, I did worse than random. So I am not claiming that HD sounds "better", just different.
Not every passage of every song will produce a meaningful difference. The areas where a 24bit vs. 16bit file differ most are in subtle dynamic changes. For example, there was a specific ~ 2-second transition in a recording of Steve Reich where I could definitely tell the difference between a 96k/24bit file and Apple Music.
Do you really hear a difference? My setup is probably really bad and I probably really suck but even 96 bit lame was indistinguishable from lossless to me, except for one part in one song.
Wow. I really can’t tell the difference at all. Like, I didn’t bother completing the test because it all sounded exactly the same. To the point where I doubted it was working and checked out the “Validate This Test” link to confirm it worked.
Almost certainly not, but the audiophile community is a profitable one... :)
On AirPods, no. With audio set ups that cost few grand, yes.
The difference will not be audible to most people because of the equipment and environment. Besides, audio has been mastered for 128kbps MP3, which most people prefer. So unless they are going to change the mastering, this is double worthless.
But I’m not in the habit of telling people how to spend their money. If they enjoy the music more because they paid more for it, no objections here. I’ve got plenty of wasteful hobbies myself.
Is there a website that implements ABX test and blinds you to what it's playing? Then unblinding at the end?
All this talk about how compression is just as good as lossless appears to be based on the idea that "we know how the brain perceives sound, so we can remove the bits you can't perceive".
And yet when I google "do all humans perceive sound the same way" the overwhelming response is that, no, humans do not perceive sound the same way. So how can compression work equally well for everyone?
As an audiophile, why risk it?
For myself, I've got Meridian processor and speakers and I can for sure tell the difference. Can I tell the difference when it's playing on a bluetooth speaker? Not so much.
Does it make a difference for AirPods. On the one hand, the AirPods will recompress to AAC, so you get compressed audio anyway. But if the source material is compressed in some other format, then it will have lost information, while recompressing it for AAC will lose different information. So if you have AirPods then you really want lossless to start with: that way you'll only have the AAC losses.
All I care about is an option for lossless. If by "HiFi" they mean 96K/24-bit (or more), then that's just snake oil. Don't even get me started on Tidal's MQA nonsense.
For most material I cannot tell the difference between lossless and AAC/Vorbis. But I can tell the difference on some metal tracks. Not all. Just some.
I’m not a Spotify user, but I have upgraded to the HD Music option on Amazon. Amazon provides music at SD (320KB), HD (850KB) and Ultra HD (up to 3700KB) — when available.
I’m not an audiophile but it sounds amazing on my AirPods and great on my Echos and in the car. My wife even said she doesn’t want to go back.
If Spotify provides bitrates near that, you will want it.
Your Airpods are recompressing everything to 256kbps AAC to transmit over bluetooth. So once again, psychoacoustic bias.
I switched to Deezer. Deezer has an audiobooks app and it's Web UI is much nicer. Spotify also annoys in how they promote podcasts, I don't want to listen podcasts. Deezer shows podcasts (or shows as they call them) in a separate section in the app.
switched to deezer too since spotify would not play through my DAC, their hifi tier is sweet, but deezer doesn't seem to have the more niche soundcloud stuff that spotify seems to have ripped early on
As someone who mainly consumes Spotify using Bluetooth headphones supporting AAC (and one pair LDAC) but none Vorbis, I may end up subscribing to this.
While it's arguable that there'll be no perceptible difference listening to 320kbps Vorbis versus "HiFi" on a dedicated device, I imagine there could be a difference when transcoding to AAC. Time will tell.
I wonder if they'll initially synthesize the HiFi data from their current sources. e.g. generate 24/32-bit 96kHz predithered data from 16-bit 44.1kHz.
[Sorry if the post covers this, I didn't read it because it wanted too many domains whitelisted for js.]
If you truly care about audio quality you can't go wrong with Qobuz, tons of 24bit material: https://www.qobuz.com/
Pardon my ignorance, if I'm using using AirPods which use 256kbps AAC, will I even notice a difference here? My guess is no but I'm not super codec savvy.
There's a large placebo component in hifi for many people so you might well (but reading this comment may lessen your experience).
My guess would be that compressing lossless audio will sound better than compressing already-compressed audio.
What would be nice is if they supported high-quality music videos along with the audio. A cap on monthly minutes would be ok. Most tracks are available on Youtube anyway.
Let’s see if Apple stumbles through last in this field at all.
Great. More internet bandwidth wasted, for their profit. They should be penalized, taxed, burdened, or forced to build "Netflix-like" own infrastructure ...
... in direct proportion to the delta in bandwidth between their "lossless" codec and state-of-the art compression with comparable sound quality.-
It’s still nothing compared to any video. They’re already paying for bandwidth… what exactly is your gripe?
I would guess this guy is still on a 1200 baud modem.
No way! I am happy to have upgraded to 14000 ... about a month ago :)
I haven't seen someone who advocates for anti net neutrality in such a seemingly genuine way.
Those poor ISPs having to upgrade their services to support their user's needs.
Had not thought of it that way.
I am just overly concerned about internet congestion ...
... but, as somebody upthread rightly points out, it's all video anyway.
(Porn, I posit ...)
Wasted?
Defining meaningful then. Majority of the bandwidth is spent on entertainment I would assume.
Wasted: The extra bandwith above and beyond what psychoacoustically would sound near perfect anyway, with much less bandwith used ...
(No sane person would object to anything on the basis of it being entertainment ...)
I can’t tell if this is a joke or not